The Department of Justice is supposed to pursue the truth. It may have,
but it certainly isn't going to publish it soon. Last December, the DOJ
announced with great fanfare that it would finally reveal the results of
an investigation into allegations that the U.S. government, and in particular the
Central Intelligence Agency, collaborated with drug smugglers to funnel
cocaine into inner-city neighborhoods. Many of those claims had been laid
out in a three-part series in the San Jose Mercury News in 1996. The most
outrageous allegations were later proved wrong, and the reporter who wrote
the story, Gary Webb, resigned. Justice abruptly pulled the report at the last
minute, citing catchall "law-enforcement concerns," and now says it has "no
immediate plans" to release the report. Such secrecy only fuels the suspicions of those like
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who want to know more. "The
Department of Justice is keeping something from the American public," says
Waters. "There's something there that would help support the charges of
cocaine-trafficking connections." Whether that's true or not, we may never
know.